2022 WATTYS SHORTLISTED || After being forced into a marriage by her devoutly religious parents, Aspen's husband is diagnosed with a life-limiting illness, and she must find her purpose as well as fight feelings for her husband's nurse. || Aspen Wat...
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"What're you doing, Aspen? No! That... you disappoint me!"
"What?" I argue back. "You're an idiot!"
"No, you're just deluded, my daisy. Books, DVDs and whatever needs to be organised by genre, not alphabetically! You're impossible!" He chuckles, but I can tell he's genuinely hurt by my organisational skills.
"Are we having this argument already? We've not been living together twenty-four hours yet!" I sigh. "They always go alphabetically. In the case of books, it's alphabetical by author. Summer isn't moving in for another couple of days, so I can still move back—"
"I'm not giving in! It goes by genre," he argues, but I watch him give in after and start reorganising.
"Good boy," I tease.
"Not what you were saying this morning," he retorts.
"Nicholas!" I playfully thump his arm.
I know what he's doing, anyway; his parents will be here in half an hour and I'm dreading it. He's been distracting me the past few days, and we both know this is yet another one. I know he doesn't really organise by genre; he's making it up to make me feel better. If he did, I would be living with Summer instead.
"It's true, I remember a few curse words coming out of—"
"Nicholas!" I throw my cardigan at him. It ruffles his curls as it hits his smirking face. "If you carry on, I'll remind you that premarital sex is a sin, and we won't be doing it anymore!"
"I better buy a ring then!" He winks at me, and I shake my head. He hasn't let me live down mentioning engagement in my rant after the funeral, either.
"Let's get today out of the way before we even go there," I retort, and start moving the empty box into the spare bedroom.
He appears in the doorway with a sigh. "It'll be fine, you know. They're gonna love you."
Without speaking, I fold myself into his arms.
I always find morning dew strange; how does it happen? Why? What's the point? It's not even that cold most mornings when it appears, but there it lies on the grass on a summer's morning. The anxiety for me is like the morning dew: unwelcome, weird, and hopefully all for nothing.
"They'll love you because I love you," he whispers into my hair. I hear him inhale my shampoo. "You smell like... bananas."
I chuckle. "I brought over my banana shampoo."
"It's kinda... I like it." He sniffs me again before I pull out of his hold. "What? It's nice!"
"You're weird!" I play-hit him again, and he acts like he's wounded.
